In this post we would like to introduce the latest version
of the IBM Storage Driver for OpenStack, which we released on January 31st,
2013.

If by any chance you are unfamiliar with OpenStack, check
out the official OpenStack project website at: www.openstack.org

To put in a few words, OpenStack is an open-source software platform
for building private and public cloud environments. The IBM driver is a
software component that enables storage provisioning of the IBM XIV Storage Systems in OpenStack
cloud environments.

The latest IBM driver version was preceded by an earlier one
(1.1.0), which enabled basic storage provisioning operations, such as volume
creation and deletion from OpenStack Cinder Node, and volume attachment to
OpenStack VMs.

The new release (1.1.1) further enhances the integration
between OpenStack and IBM XIV Storage System by adding support for XIV
volume snapshot functions.

For example, let's look at the following OpenStack Web UI management page:

In this example, if you want to create a snapshot of ‘vol1’ on
IBM XIV Storage System, you can use the ‘Create Snapshot’ action using either
OpenStack CLI or Web UI.

Here is your created snapshot, as can be viewed from the
XIV GUI:

Similarly, you can use OpenStack's ‘Create volume from
snapshot’ action to create a volume based on an existing snapshot.

An additional ease-of-use enhancement in version 1.1.1 is
the new unattended installation option, allowing no user interaction during the
installation, perfect for automating the installation process. You can use the following command format to install the IBM driver
in an unattended mode:

The IBM Storage Driver for OpenStack can be downloaded here along with the Installation Guide and Release Notes.

Whenever you choose to integrate your IBM XIV Storage System with an
OpenStack cloud environment, our driver is available to help you achieve this
goal. We are happy to provide this newer version that further facilitates and
enhances the utilization of your XIV storage resources and capabilities in your
cloud environment.

We are happy to announce the release of an updated OpenStack Cinder driver for IBM Spectrum Virtualize, Storwize Family and FlashSystem V9000. This release complies with OpenStack Liberty specifications, emphasizing IBM's continuous commitment to making the cutting-edge OpenStack features available for IBM storage customers.

Another change is the enabling or disabling the fast format option during thick volume creation. As some volume operations are disabled until fast format is completed, the customer can now skip the fast format, when creating a thick volume. This makes the volume operational immediately after its creation.

Version 7.6 of IBM Spectrum Virtualize and Storwize Family will be supported after its release with no additional Cinder driver code change.

We are proud to announce that the IBM Storage Driver for OpenStack has been recently upgraded to a new version - 1.6.0. This version brings support for OpenStack Liberty release, as well as for DS8870 microcode version 7.5 SP3 and DS8880 version 8.01. In addition, this release introduces the XIV and Spectrum Accelerate support for the OpenStack consistency groups. It also brings in the RESTful API that replaced the Java-based ESSNI driver in DS8000 storage systems.

OpenStack Mitaka is upon us, and with it - a new IBM Storage Driver to support this release. This time it is version 1.7.0. This release brings support for the newest IBM's all-flash storage offerings: ultra-fast IBM FlashSystem A9000 and IBM FlashSystem A9000R. In addition, it brings the following exciting features:

Support for high-availability and disaster recovery of applications running on top of OpenStack clouds, using volume replication version 2.1, introduced in OpenStack Mitaka.

This somewhat belated blog post is meant to clarify the past, present, and future development of the IBM Storage Driver for OpenStack. For over 4 years, ever since the OpenStack Folsom release (when Cinder was still part of Nova), IBM Storage Driver for OpenStack has been released by IBM to support the integration of IBM XIV and IBM DS8000 storage systems with OpenStack cloud environments. In parallel, the IBM SAN Volume Controller, IBM Storwize Family, and IBM FlashSystem V9000 storage systems were already included in the OpenStack community source code. Throughout this period, the IBM XIV and IBM DS8000 storage driver remained proprietary. However, as community standards called for opening the driver source code, a decision to incorporate the driver into the community code has been made.

We decided to take the dive into the open-source code in version 2.0.0 of IBM Storage Driver for OpenStack, aiming to include IBM FlashSystem A9000 and A9000R, IBM XIV, IBM Spectrum Accelerate (deployable software), and IBM DS8000 Family systems in the community source code for the OpenStack Ocata release.

The journey of opening the code has been a unique one, as most drivers start as open, and do not evolve from a closed source code. But the challenge was met, and, as we are actually nearing the next release of version 2.1.0, we can make a full use of countless benefits of any open source software. Among them are:

Let’s face it: even the most resilient, robust, and secure storage sites, located above ground or even underground, could potentially be exposed, in a certain degree, to all kinds of disasters that may temporarily or indefinitely halt the site operation. This could be an extreme weather condition or natural disaster (hurricane, tornado, earthquake, etc.), a prolonged and unplanned interruption of power supply (power grid or power station failure), an accident, act of war, cyberattack, and who knows what else – God forbid…

Enterprises that rely on non-stop, continuous, and unbreakable access to data, as well as on the ability to keep existing data integrity in parallel to on-going update/writing operations at the highest possible standards, must have disaster prevention and recovery mechanisms in place, ready to be used at any point in time.

Enterprise-class storage systems, such as IBM XIV Gen3, IBM FlashSystem A9000, and IBM FlashSystem A9000R, provide advanced site mirroring capabilities, either synchronous or asynchronous, including 3-site mirroring for XIV Gen3, and HyperSwap for FlashSystem A9000 and A9000R. These native underlying replication and high availability (HA) technologies allow these IBM storage systems to serve not only conventional hosts and clusters, but also virtual machines in VMware and Microsoft cloud environments, as well as OpenStack cloud nodes.

Virtual machines duplicates can be deployed at a secondary backup site, together with the backup storage systems to serve those sites.

In a VMware environment, virtual machines can be recovered by using VMware Site Recovery Manager (SRM) together with the IBM Spectrum Accelerate Family Storage Replication Adapter (SRA), which also supports – starting from version 3.0.0 – HyperSwap operations.

The last several releases of the OpenStack Cinder project addressed various disaster recovery (DR) scenarios. In Mitaka, replication v2.1 (codename ‘Cheesecake’) was introduced. This admin API was designed to solve a true DR scenario, when an entire backend is failed over to another backend on a secondary site. There are other DR scenarios in which the user wants to have better control over the replication granularity. For this purpose, the Cinder team has decided to provide tenant-facing group APIs, allowing volume grouping for a tenant. This enables volume group replication and failover without affecting the entire backend.

The IBM Storage Driver for OpenStack supports the following IBM storage systems:

IBM DS8000 Family

IBM FlashSystem A9000

IBM FlashSystem A9000R

IBM Spectrum Accelerate

IBM XIV Storage System

The user can choose between a generic group replication and consistency group (CG) replication. For consistency group replication, the driver utilizes the storage capabilities to handle CGs and replicate them to a remote site. On the other hand, in generic group replication, the driver replicates each volume individually. In addition, the user can select the replication type. For example, IBM FlashSystem A9000 and A9000R storage systems support both synchronous and asynchronous replication.The minimum Cinder client version that supports group replication is 3.38.

The following functions were added to the IBM Storage Driver for OpenStack to support group replication:

Enable replication

Disable replication

Failover replication

The following example illustrates configuration of a replicated consistency group.